“This is just a strongly warded illusion,” Marcy said, closing her eyes as she began to murmur. “Push some of some of your magic into that tree and see if you can break the ward while I try a spell.”
I closed my eyes. We need Selene’s or Eudoxia’s magic for this, I told my wolf. For the first time, she uncurled the power of five. She grabbed Selene’s red signature and mixed it with Eudoxia’s white. As the magic moved forward, it churned through my body, a ribbon of pink. It was strong. We toss it at the tree all at once. “Marcy, get ready,” I said. “I’m going to blast it on three.”
“I was born ready.”
“One, two… three!” I forced the magic from my body, shocking the ward at the same time Marcy shouted her incantation.
There was one pulse and all of a sudden it burst open. The impact threw us backward. What stood before us was terrible.
“No,” I breathed.
Naomi was laid out on top of an earthen altar, her body still, covered by a gray blanket that could’ve been white at some point.
“You are too late, lone wolf.” The voice coming out of the bokor’s mouth held an accent, possibly Haitian.
“She’s stalling,” Marcy whispered from right beside me as we both stood and stared. “The ceremony isn’t finished. I can feel the magic vibrating for release. You have to go now.” She elbowed me. “Destroy it before she can say anything else.”
Needing no more prodding, I bounded into the area.
It was a perfect circle, lined with tree trunks carved into gruesome totem poles with expressions of death and destruction detailed onto each tier. Tied to every pole was a rabid wolf, each baring its teeth and snarling. In the trees behind the totem poles, snakes of various sizes slithered here and there between the branches and skated across tops of the structures in eerie silence.
It was a grisly scene.
But the capper to the entire show was the female, who stood tall at the head of the altar. She was thin, her skin a deep milk chocolate, her hair pure white and sheared close to her scalp. She wore a multicolored robe, the sleeves draped to her elbows, her hands raised high in the air. Her nails were long and yellow, curved around her fingertips like claws. And blood dripped from her palms.
As I entered the circle, her head rose slowly to meet my gaze.
Her irises were the color of ice.
The effect was immediate. It was like she could see through me, straight into my soul.
Naomi lay in front of her. The altar was crude, made of mud and twigs, and as I rushed closer, I noticed that under the gray blanket, Naomi was dressed in a simple sheer gown, her hands restrained by thin iron rings.
She didn’t move, which was distressing.
I was going to destroy everything I could find.
“Halt!” This time the voice that came out of the bokor’s mouth was different. It sounded ancient. The loa’s voice was authoritative, the Haitian accent gone. I stopped in my tracks. “You came too late to save this one. The blood that rides within this host has already been consumed.” The bokor grinned, an expression that looked unnatural since the command had been issued from the loa. I noticed now she had a red smear mark on both her cheeks, and as she smiled, her teeth were broken and blackened.
I narrowed my gaze on Naomi and edged to the side to get a better look at her. One of her arms had been recently cut and a bone knife covered in blood lay next to her head. Her blood had been contained in a small bowl, made of what looked like ivory, which sat next to the knife.
“I don’t care if you’ve consumed her blood.” I took a bold step forward. There wasn’t much here to destroy except for the altar. “You’re not going to live long enough to do anything with it, so it doesn’t matter.”
The bokor tossed her head back as the loa laughed. The sound was manic.